The Nephilim (; ''Nəfīlīm'') are mysterious beings or people in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' The word ''Nephilim'' is loosely translated as '' giants'' in some translations of the Hebrew Bible, but left untranslated in others. Jewish explanations interpret them as hybrid sons of fallen angels. The main reference to them is in Genesis 6:1–4, but the passage is ambiguous and the identity of the Nephilim is disputed. According to the

Book of Numbers The book of Numbers (from Greek Ἀριθμοί, ''Arithmoi''; he, בְּמִדְבַּר, ''Bəmīḏbar'', "In the desert f) is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah. The book has a long and ...

13:33, they later inhabited

Canaan Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...

at the time of the Israelite conquest of Canaan. A similar or identical

biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of t ...

term, read as "Nephilim" by some scholars, or as the word "fallen" by others, appears in the

Book of Ezekiel The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Tanakh and one of the major prophetic books, following Isaiah and Jeremiah. According to the book itself, it records six visions of the prophet Ezekiel, exiled in Babylon, during ...

32:27 and is also mentioned in the

deuterocanonicals The deuterocanonical books (from the Greek meaning "belonging to the second canon") are books and passages considered by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Assyrian Church of the East to be ...

Judith 16:6, Sirach 16:7, Baruch 3:26–28, and

Wisdom Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight. Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowledg ...

14:6.

Etymology

The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon (1908) gives the meaning of nephilim as " giants", and holds that proposed etymologies of the word are "all very precarious."Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1907). ''A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament.'' p. 658 Many suggested interpretations are based on the assumption that the word is a derivative of Hebrew verbal root () "fall." Robert Baker Girdlestone argued in 1871 the word comes from the hif'il

causative In linguistics, a causative ( abbreviated ) is a valency-increasing operationPayne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 173–186. that indicates that a subject either ...

stem, implying that the nephilim are to be perceived as 'those that cause others to fall down'. Ronald Hendel states that it is a passive form: 'ones who have fallen', grammatically analogous to 'one who is appointed' (i.e., a deputy or overseer), 'one who is bound' (i.e., a prisoner), etc. The majority of ancient biblical translations – including the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

, Theodotion, Latin Vulgate, Samaritan Targum, Targum Onkelos, and Targum Neofiti – interpret the word to mean "giants." Symmachus translates it as "the violent ones" and Aquila's translation has been interpreted to mean either "the fallen ones" or "the ones falling pon their enemies"

In the Hebrew Bible

In the Hebrew Bible, there are three interconnected passages referencing the ''nephilim.'' Two of them come from the

Pentateuch The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

. The first occurrence is in Genesis 6:1–4, immediately before the account of

Noah's Ark Noah's Ark ( he, תיבת נח; Biblical Hebrew: ''Tevat Noaḥ'')The word "ark" in modern English comes from Old English ''aerca'', meaning a chest or box. (See Cresswell 2010, p.22) The Hebrew word for the vessel, ''teva'', occurs twice in ...

. Genesis 6:4 reads as follows: Where the Jewish Publication Society translation simply transliterates the Hebrew ''nephilim'' as "Nephilim", the

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of K ...

translates the term as "giants". The nature of the Nephilim is complicated by the ambiguity of Genesis 6:4, which leaves it unclear whether they are the "sons of God" or their offspring who are the "mighty men of old, men of renown". Richard Hess takes it to mean that the Nephilim are the offspring, as does P. W. Coxon. The second is Numbers 13:32–33 where ten of the Twelve Spies report that they have seen fearsome giants in Canaan: Outside the Pentateuch there is one more passage indirectly referencing ''nephilim'' and this is Ezekiel 32:17–32. Of special significance is Ezekiel 32:27, which contains a phrase of disputed meaning. With the traditional vowels added to the text in the medieval period, the phrase is read ''gibborim nophlim'' ("'fallen warriors" or "fallen Gibborim"), although some scholars read the phrase as ''gibborim nephilim'' ("Nephilim warriors" or "warriors, Nephilim"). According to Ronald S. Hendel, the phrase should be interpreted as "warriors, the Nephilim" in a reference to Genesis 6:4. The verse as understood by Hendel reads: Brian R. Doak, on the other hand, proposes to read the term as the Hebrew verb "fallen" (נופלים ''nophlim''), not a use of the specific term "Nephilim", but still according to Doak a clear reference to the Nephilim tradition as found in Genesis.

Interpretations

Giants

Most of the contemporary English translations of Genesis 6:1–4 and Numbers 13:33 render the Hebrew ''nefilim'' as "giants". This tendency in turn stems from the fact that one of the earliest translations of the Hebrew Bible, the

, composed in the 3rd or 2nd century BCE, renders the said word as ''gigantes''. The choice made by the Greek translators has been later adopted into the Latin translation, the

Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...

, compiled in the 4th or 5th century CE, which uses the transcription of the Greek term rather than the literal translation of the Hebrew ''nefilim''. From there, the tradition of the giant progeny of the sons of God and the daughters of men spread to later medieval translations of the Bible. The decision of the Greek translators to render the Hebrew ''nefilim'' as Greek ''gigantes'' is a separate matter. The Hebrew ''nefilim'' means literally "the fallen ones" and the strict translation into Greek would be ''peptokotes'', which in fact appears in the Septuagint of Ezekiel 32:22–27. It seems then that the authors of Septuagint wished not only to simply translate the foreign term into Greek, but also to employ a term which would be intelligible and meaningful for their Hellenistic audiences. Given the complex meaning of the ''nefilim'' which emerged from the three interconnected biblical passages (human–divine hybrids in Genesis 6, autochthonous people in Numbers 13 and ancient warriors trapped in the underworld in Ezekiel 32), the Greek translators recognized some similarities. First and foremost, both ''nefilim'' and ''gigantes'' were

liminal being Liminal beings are those that cannot easily be placed into a single category of existence. Associated with the threshold state of liminality, from Latin ''līmen'', "threshold", they represent and highlight the semi-autonomous boundaries of the s ...

s resulting from the union of the opposite orders and as such retained the unclear status between the human and divine. Similarly dim was their moral designation and the sources witnessed to both awe and fascination with which these figures must have been looked upon. Secondly, both were presented as impersonating chaotic qualities and posing some serious danger to gods and humans. They appeared either in the prehistoric or early historical context, but in both cases they preceded the ordering of the cosmos. Lastly, both ''gigantes'' and ''nefilim'' were clearly connected with the underworld and were said to have originated from earth, and they both end up closed therein. In 1 Enoch, they were "great giants, whose height was three hundred cubits". A

cubit The cubit is an ancient unit of length based on the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. It was primarily associated with the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Israelites. The term ''cubit'' is found in the Bible regarding ...

being , this would make them tall. The

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , ...

refers to the people of Ād in Quran 26:130 whom the

prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the ...

Hud declares to be like ''jabbarin'' (Hebrew: ''gibborim''), probably a reference to the Biblical Nephilim. The people of Ād are said to be giants, the tallest among them high. However, according to

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...

ic legend, the ʿĀd were not wiped out by the flood, since some of them had been too tall to be drowned. Instead, God destroyed them after they rejected further warnings. After death, they were banished into the lower layers of

hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...

Fallen angels

All early sources refer to the "sons of heaven" as angels. From the third century BCE onwards, references are found in the Enochic literature, the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

(the Genesis Apocryphon, the Damascus Document, 4Q180), Jubilees, the Testament of Reuben, 2 Baruch,

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...

, and the

book of Jude The Epistle of Jude is the penultimate book of the New Testament as well as the Christian Bible. It is traditionally attributed to Jude, brother of James the Just, and thus possibly brother of Jesus as well. Jude is a short epistle written in ...

(compare with 2 Peter 2). For example: 1 Enoch 7:2 "And when the angels, (3) the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamoured of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children." Some Christian apologists, such as

Tertullian Tertullian (; la, Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus; 155 AD – 220 AD) was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of L ...

and especially

Lactantius Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325) was an early Christian author who became an advisor to Roman emperor, Constantine I, guiding his Christian religious policy in its initial stages of emergence, and a tutor to his son Cri ...

, shared this opinion. The earliest statement in a secondary commentary explicitly interpreting this to mean that angelic beings mated with humans can be traced to the rabbinical '' Targum Pseudo-Jonathan'' and it has since become especially commonplace in modern Christian commentaries. This line of interpretation finds additional support in the text of Genesis 6:4, which juxtaposes the sons of God (male gender, divine nature) with the daughters of men (female gender, human nature). From this parallelism it could be inferred that the sons of God are understood as some superhuman beings. The '' New American Bible'' commentary draws a parallel to the

Epistle of Jude The Epistle of Jude is the penultimate book of the New Testament as well as the Christian Bible. It is traditionally attributed to Jude, brother of James the Just, and thus possibly brother of Jesus as well. Jude is a short epistle written in ...

and the statements set forth in Genesis, suggesting that the Epistle refers implicitly to the paternity of Nephilim as heavenly beings who came to earth and had sexual intercourse with women. The footnotes of the

Jerusalem Bible ''The Jerusalem Bible'' (JB or TJB) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd. As a Catholic Bible, it includes 73 books: the 39 books shared with the Hebrew Bible, along with the seven deuterocanonica ...

suggest that the biblical author intended the Nephilim to be an "anecdote of a superhuman race". Some Christian commentators have argued against this view, citing

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

's statement that angels do not marry. Others believe that Jesus was only referring to angels in heaven. Evidence cited in favor of the fallen angels interpretation includes the fact that the phrase "the sons of God" (Hebrew: ; or "sons of the gods") is used twice outside of Genesis chapter 6, in the

Book of Job The Book of Job (; hbo, אִיּוֹב, ʾIyyōḇ), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and is the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Scholars a ...

(1:6 and 2:1) where the phrase explicitly references angels. The Septuagint manuscript

Codex Alexandrinus The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII), designated by the siglum A or 02 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 4 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a manu ...

reading of Genesis 6:2 renders this phrase as "the angels of God" while

Codex Vaticanus The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), designated by siglum B or 03 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 1 ( von Soden), is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old ...

reads "sons". Targum Pseudo-Jonathan identifies the Nephilim as Shemihaza and the angels in the name list from 1 Enoch.

Second Temple Judaism

The story of the Nephilim is further elaborated in the Book of Enoch. The Greek, Aramaic, and main Ge'ez manuscripts of 1 Enoch and Jubilees obtained in the 19th century and held in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...

, connect the origin of the Nephilim with the fallen angels, and in particular with the (''watchers'').

Samyaza Samyaza ( he, שמחזי; arc, שמיחזה; el, Σεμιαζά; ar, ساميارس, '), also Shemhazai, Azza, Uzza, or Ouza, is a fallen angel of apocryphal Abrahamic traditions and Manichaeism who ranked in the heavenly hierarchy as the leade ...

, an

angel In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God. Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles ...

of high rank, is described as leading a rebel sect of angels in a descent to earth to have sexual intercourse with human females: In this tradition, the children of the Nephilim are called the

Elioud In the Book of Enoch and Book of Jubilees, copies of which were kept by groups including the religious community of Qumran that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Elioud (also transliterated ''Eljo'') are the antediluvian children of the Nephilim ...

, who are considered a separate race from the Nephilim, but they share the fate of the Nephilim. Some believe the fallen angels who begat the Nephilim were cast into Tartarus (2 Peter 2:4, Jude 1:6) (Greek Enoch 20:2), a place of "total darkness". An interpretation is that God granted ten percent of the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim to remain after the flood, as

demon A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in Media (communication), media such as comics, video ...

s, to try to lead the human race astray until the final Judgment. In addition to ''Enoch'', the '' Book of Jubilees'' (7:21–25) also states that ridding the Earth of these Nephilim was one of God's purposes for flooding the Earth in Noah's time. These works describe the Nephilim as being evil giants. There are also allusions to these descendants in the deuterocanonical books of '' Judith'' (16:6), '' Sirach'' (16:7), '' Baruch'' (3:26–28), and '' Wisdom of Solomon'' (14:6), and in the non-deuterocanonical '' 3 Maccabees'' (2:4). The New Testament

(14–15) cites from 1 Enoch 1:9, which many scholars believe is based on

Deuteronomy Deuteronomy ( grc, Δευτερονόμιον, Deuteronómion, second law) is the fifth and last book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called (Hebrew: hbo, , Dəḇārīm, hewords Moses.html"_;"title="f_Moses">f_Moseslabel=none)_and_th ...

33:2. To most commentators this confirms that the author of Jude regarded the Enochic interpretations of Genesis 6 as correct; however, others have questioned this.

Descendants of Seth and Cain

References to the offspring of Seth rebelling from God and mingling with the daughters of Cain are found from the second century CE onwards in both Christian and Jewish sources (e.g. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai,

Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...

, Sextus Julius Africanus, and the Letters attributed to St. Clement). It is also the view expressed in the modern canonical

Amharic Amharic ( or ; (Amharic: ), ', ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all oth ...

Ethiopian Orthodox Bible: Henok 2:1–3 "and the Offspring of Seth, who were upon the Holy Mount, saw them and loved them. And they told one another, 'Come, let us choose for us daughters from Cain's children; let us bear children for us. Orthodox Judaism has taken a stance against the idea that Genesis 6 refers to angels or that angels could intermarry with men. Shimon bar Yochai pronounced a curse on anyone teaching this idea.

Rashi Shlomo Yitzchaki ( he, רבי שלמה יצחקי; la, Salomon Isaacides; french: Salomon de Troyes, 22 February 1040 – 13 July 1105), today generally known by the acronym Rashi (see below), was a medieval French rabbi and author of a compre ...

and Nachmanides followed this. Pseudo-Philo (''Biblical Antiquities'' 3:1–3) may also imply that the "sons of God" were human. Consequently, most Jewish commentaries and translations describe the Nephilim as being from the offspring of "sons of nobles", rather than from "sons of God" or "sons of angels". This is also the rendering suggested in the Targum Onqelos, Symmachus and the Samaritan Targum, which read "sons of the rulers", where

Targum Neophyti Targum Neofiti (or Targum Neophyti) is the largest of the Western Targumim on the Torah, or Palestinian Targumim. The extant copy consists of 450 folios covering all books of the Torah, with only a few damaged verses. More than a mere Aramaic tra ...

reads "sons of the judges". Likewise, a long-held view among some Christians is that the "sons of God" were the formerly righteous descendants of Seth who rebelled, while the "daughters of men" were the unrighteous descendants of Cain, and the Nephilim the offspring of their union. This view, dating to at least the 1st century CE in Jewish literature as described above, is also found in Christian sources from the 3rd century if not earlier, with references throughout the

Clementine literature Clementine literature (also called Clementina, Pseudo-Clementine Writings, Kerygmata Petrou, Clementine Romance) is the name given to the religious romance which purports to contain a record made by one Clement (whom the narrative identifies as ...

, as well as in Sextus Julius Africanus,

Ephrem the Syrian Ephrem the Syrian ( syc, ܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, Mār ʾAp̄rêm Sūryāyā, ; grc-koi, Ἐφραὶμ ὁ Σῦρος, Efrém o Sýros; la, Ephraem Syrus; am, ቅዱስ ኤፍሬም ሶርያዊ; ), also known as Saint Ephrem, Saint ...

, and others. Holders of this view have looked for support in Jesus' statement that "in those days before the flood ''they'' umanswere ... ''marrying and giving in marriage''" (, emphasis added). Some individuals and groups, including

St. Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...

John Chrysostom John Chrysostom (; gr, Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος; 14 September 407) was an important Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of ...

, and John Calvin, take the view of Genesis 6:2 that the "Angels" who fathered the Nephilim referred to certain human males from the lineage of Seth, who were called ''sons of God'' probably in reference to their prior covenant with

Yahweh Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he po ...

(cf. ; ); according to these sources, these men had begun to pursue bodily interests, and so took wives of "the daughters of men", e.g., those who were descended from Cain or from any people who did not worship God. This also is the view of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, supported by their own Ge'ez manuscripts and

translation of the Haile Selassie Bible—where the books of 1 Enoch and Jubilees, counted as canonical by this church, differ from western academic editions. The "Sons of Seth view" is also the view presented in a few extra-biblical, yet ancient works, including

, the 3rd century '' Cave of Treasures'', and the c. 6th century Ge'ez work ''The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan''. In these sources, these offspring of Seth were said to have disobeyed God, by breeding with the Cainites and producing wicked children "who were all unlike", thus angering God into bringing about the Deluge, as in the ''Conflict'':

Arguments from culture and mythology

In Aramaic culture, the term ''niyphelah'' refers to the

Constellation of Orion Orion is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world. It is one of the most conspicuous and recognizable constellations in the night sky. It is named after Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology. ...

and ''nephilim'' to the offspring of Orion in mythology. However the

Brown–Driver–Briggs ''A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament'', more commonly known as ''Brown–Driver–Briggs'' or ''BDB'' (from the name of its three authors) is a standard reference for Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic, first published in 1906 ...

lexicon notes this as a "dubious etymology" and "all very precarious".''Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew Lexicon'' p. 658; Strong's H5307 J. C. Greenfield mentions that "it has been proposed that the tale of the Nephilim, alluded to in Genesis 6 is based on some of the negative aspects of the

Apkallu Apkallu ( Akkadian) and Abgal ( Sumerian: ) are terms found in cuneiform inscriptions that in general mean either "wise" or "sage". In several contexts the ''Apkallu'' are seven demi-gods, sometimes described as part man and part fish, associa ...

tradition." The ''apkallu'' in

Sumerian mythology Sumerian religion was the religion practiced by the people of Sumer, the first literate civilization of ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerians regarded their divinities as responsible for all matters pertaining to the natural and social orders. Ove ...

were seven legendary culture heroes from before the

Flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

, of human descent, but possessing extraordinary wisdom from the gods, and one of the seven ''apkallu'', Adapa, was therefore called "son of Ea" the Babylonian god, despite his human origin.

Arabian paganism

Fallen angels were believed by Arab pagans to be sent to earth in form of men. Some of them mated with humans and gave rise to hybrid children. As recorded by

Al-Jahiz Abū ʿUthman ʿAmr ibn Baḥr al-Kinānī al-Baṣrī ( ar, أبو عثمان عمرو بن بحر الكناني البصري), commonly known as al-Jāḥiẓ ( ar, links=no, الجاحظ, ''The Bug Eyed'', born 776 – died December 868/Jan ...

, a common belief held that Abu Jurhum, the ancestor of the Jurhum tribe, was actually the son of a disobedient angel and a human woman.

Fossil remains

In 1577, a series of large bones discovered near Lucerne were interpreted as the bones of an

antediluvian The antediluvian (alternatively pre-diluvian or pre-flood) period is the time period chronicled in the Bible between the fall of man and the Genesis flood narrative in biblical cosmology. The term was coined by Thomas Browne. The narrative tak ...

giant about tall. In 1786, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach found out that these remains belonged to a

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks an ...

. Cotton Mather believed that

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

ized leg bones and teeth discovered near Albany, New York, in 1705, were the remains of nephilim who perished in a great flood.

Paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

s have identified these as

mastodon A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of the ...

remains.

In popular culture

The name and idea of Nephilim, like many other religious concepts, is sometimes used in popular culture. Examples include the

gothic rock Gothic rock (also called goth rock or simply goth) is a style of rock music that emerged from post-punk in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The first post-punk bands which shifted toward dark music with gothic overtones include Siouxsie ...

band Fields of the Nephilim, '' The Renquist Quartet'' novels by Mick Farren, '' The Mortal Instruments'', '' The Infernal Devices'', '' The Last Hours'', ''

The Dark Artifices ''The Dark Artifices'' is a trilogy written by Cassandra Clare. The series is chronologically the fourth series in ''The Shadowhunter Chronicles'' and a sequel to ''The Mortal Instruments''. It is set in Los Angeles. The series consists of three b ...

'' and other books in '' The Shadowhunter Chronicles'' series by Cassandra Clare, the ''

Hush, Hush ''Hush, Hush'' is a 2009 ''New York Times'' bestselling young adult fiction, young adult fantasy novel by Becca Fitzpatrick and the first book in her ''Hush, Hush (series), Hush, Hush'' series. The novel received rave reviews and focuses on Nora ...

'' series by

Becca Fitzpatrick Becca Fitzpatrick (born February 3, 1979) is an American author, best known for having written the '' New York Times'' bestseller '' Hush, Hush'', a young adult novel published in 2009 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. She wrote thre ...

, the book ''

Many Waters ''Many Waters'' is a 1986 novel by Madeleine L'Engle, part of the author's Time Quintet (also known as the Time Quartet). The title is taken from the Song of Solomon 8:7: "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. If a ...

'' by Madeleine L'Engle, and TV series '' The X-Files'' and ''

Supernatural Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...

.'' In the video game series '' Darksiders'', the four horsemen of the apocalypse are said to be nephilim, wherein the nephilim were created by the unholy union of angels and demons. Dante and Vergil, the main characters of the game '' DmC: Devil May Cry'' (2013), a reboot of the popular original series ''

Devil May Cry is a series of action-adventure games created by Hideki Kamiya. It is primarily developed and published by Capcom. The series centers on the demon hunter Dante (Devil May Cry), Dante and his efforts to thwart various demon invasions of Earth. ...

'', are also referred to as Nephilim; being the offspring of the demon Sparda and the angel Eva. In the trading card game '' Magic: The Gathering'', the Nephilim are interpreted as Old Gods from before modern society. In ''

Diablo 3 ''Diablo III'' is a hack-and-slash action role-playing game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment as the third installment in the ''Diablo'' franchise. It was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X in May 2012, PlayStation 3 and X ...

'', the Nephalem were the first humans upon Sanctuary, created as a result of the union between angels and demons. In the heist-themed first person shooter '' Payday 2'', several paintings, artifacts, and far off visuals reference the Nephilim, and a secret ending to the game brings in alien technology supposedly left by the Nephilim. A creature referred to as "Nephilim" appears in Season 2 of the Japanese animated series ''

Symphogear is a Japanese anime television franchise animated by Satelight. The original season aired on Tokyo MX between January and March 2012. The second season entitled ''Symphogear G'' aired between July and September 2013, The third season, ''Sy ...

''. '' Nephilim'' is a

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal ac ...

about powerful elemental entities reincarnating into human beings.

References

External links

Jewish Encyclopedia: Fall of Angels

{{Creationism topics Angels in Christianity Angels in Judaism Arabian legendary creatures Bereshit (parashah) Book of Genesis people Classes of angels Demons in Christianity Demons in Judaism Fallen angels Giants in the Hebrew Bible Mythological human hybrids Book of Jubilees